This was the result brought about by the gradual extension of the factory system. The objections made from the beginning, and still made, with such answers as experience has suggested, find place later on.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] By Thorold Rogers.

[5] Weeden's Economic and Social History of New England, vol. i. p. 304.

[6] Caulkins, p. 273.

[7] Rider's Book Notes, vol. ii. p. 7.

[8] Boston News-Letter, Jan. 25, 1773.

[9] Boston News-Letter, Jan. 25, 1773.

[10] Barry's Massachusetts, vol. xi. p. 193.

[11] Weeden's Social and Economic History of New England, vol. ii. p. 790.

[12] Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society, 1798-1835, p. 353.

[13] Atlantic Monthly, December, 1883, p. 773.

[14] For further detail, see McMaster's History of the United States, vol. i. p. 62.

[15] Philosophy of Manufactures, by Andrew Ure, M.D., p. 13.



III.

EARLY ASPECTS OF FACTORY LABOR FOR WOMEN.

Lack not only of machinery but of any facilities for its manufacture hampered and delayed the progress of the factory movement in the United States; but these difficulties were at last overcome, and in 1813 Waltham, Mass., saw what is probably the first factory in the world that combined under one roof every process for converting raw cotton into finished cloth.

Manufacturing, even when most hampered by the burden of taxation then imposed and the heavy duties and other restrictions following the long war, began under happier conditions than have ever been known elsewhere. Unskilled labor had smallest place, and of this class New England had for long next to no knowledge. Her workers in the beginning were recruited from the outlying country; and the women and girls who flocked into Lowell, as in the earliest years they had flocked into Pawtucket, were New-Englanders by birth and training. This meant not only quickness and deftness of handling, but the conscientious filling of every hour with the utmost work it could be made to hold.

The life of the Lowell factory-girls has full record in the little magazine called the "Lowell Offering," published by them for many years. Lucy Larcom has also lately given her "Recollections," one of the most valuable and characteristic pictures of the life from year to year, and it tallies with the summary made by Dickens in his "American Notes." Beginning as a child of eleven, whose business was simply to change bobbins, she received a wage of one dollar a week, with one dollar and a quarter for board, the allowance made by most of the corporations while the system of boarding-houses in connection with the factories lasted. The oldest corporation, known as the Merrimack, introduced this system, and for many years retained oversight of all in its employ. With increasing competition and the increase of the foreign element, alteration of methods began, and Lowell lost its characteristic features.

In the beginning the conditions of factory labor for New England at the point where work was initiated, were, as compared with those of England, almost idyllic. The Lowell workers came from New England farms, many of them for the sake of being near libraries and schools, and thus securing larger opportunities for self-culture.

The agricultural class then outranked merchants and mechanics. There were no class distinctions, and the workers shared in the best social life of Lowell. The factory was an episode rather than a career; and the buildings themselves were kept as clean as the nature of the work admitted, growing plants filling the windows; and the swift-flowing Merrimac turning the wheels.

In 1841 the girls had to their credit in the savings-banks established by the corporations over one hundred thousand dollars; and many of them shared their earnings with brothers who sought a college education, or lifted the mortgages on the home farms. At the International Council of Women, held in Washington in 1888, Mrs. H.H. Robinson, after telling how she entered the Lowell Mills as a "doffer," when a child, gave a brilliant description of the intellectual life and interests of the workers. She remained in the mill till married, and said: "I consider the Lowell Mills as my alma mater, and am as proud of them as most girls of the colleges in which they have been educated."

With the growth of the factory system under very different conditions from that of Lowell, there were as different results. Factories had risen, at every available point in New England, all of them thronged by women and girls. But great cities were still unknown; and the first census, that for 1790, showed that hardly four per cent of the people were in them. The tide set toward the factory towns as strongly as it now does toward the cities, though factory labor for the most part was of almost incredible severity. The length of a day's labor varied from twelve to fifteen hours, the mills of New England running generally thirteen hours a day the year round. Several mills are on record, the day in one of which was fourteen hours, and in the other fifteen hours and ten minutes, this latter being the Eagle Mill at Griswold, Conn.; and previous to 1858 there were many others where hours were equally long. Work began at five in the morning, or at some points a little later; and there is a known instance of a mill in Paterson, N.J., in which women and children were required to be at work by half-past four in the morning.

In most of the New England factories, the operatives were taxed for the support of religion. The Lowell Company dismissed them if often absent from church, and their lives without and within the factory were regulated as minutely as if in the cloister. Women and children were urged on by the cowhide; and the first inspection of the factories, notably in Connecticut, revealed a state of things hardly less harrowing than that which had brought about the passage of the first Factory Acts in England. At the same time wages were very inadequate. In twelve hours' daily labor the weavers of Baltimore were able to earn from sixty to seventy cents a day, the wage of the women being half or a third this amount; and they declared it not enough to pay the expenses of schooling for the children.

With the increase of production and the growing competition of manufacturers, wages were steadily forced downward. Less and less attention was paid to the comfort or well-being of the operatives, and many factories were unfit working-places for human beings. Overseers, whose duty it was to keep up the utmost rate of speed, flogged children brutally; and the treatment was so barbarous that a boy of twelve at Mendon, Mass., drowned himself to escape factory labor. Windows were often nailed down, and their raising forbidden even in the hottest weather.

The most formidable and trustworthy arraignment of these conditions is to be found in a pamphlet printed in 1834, the full title of which is as follows: "An Address to the Working-men of New England, on the State of Education, and on the Condition of the Producing Classes in Europe and America."

The author of this pamphlet, a mechanic of some education, stirred to the heart by the abuses he saw, made an exhaustive examination of the New England mills; and he gives many details of the hours of labor, the wages of employees, and the abuses of power which he found everywhere among unscrupulous manufacturers. The principal value of his work lies in this, and in his reprint of original documents like the "General Rules of the Lowell Manufacturing Company," and "The Conditions on which Help is hired by the Cocheco Manufacturing Company, Dover, N.H." These conditions were so oppressive that in several cases revolt took place,—usually unsuccessful, as no organization existed among the women, and they were powerless to effect any marked change for the better.

By 1835 chiefly the poorer order of workers filled the mills, but even skilled labor made constant complaint of cruelties and injustices. Not only were there distressing cases of cruelty to children, but outrage of every kind had been found to exist among the women workers, whose wage had been lowered till nearly at the point known to-day as the subsistence point. Parents then, as now, gave false returns of age, and caught greedily at the prospect of any earning by their children; and any specific enactments as to schooling, etc., were still delayed.

These evils were not confined to New England, but existed at every point where manufacturing was carried on. But New England was first to decide on the necessity for some organized remonstrance and resistance, and the first meeting to this end was held in February, 1831. Of this there is no record; but the second, held in September, 1832, is given in the first "Report of the Massachusetts Bureau of Labor," issued in 1870. Boston sent thirty delegates, and the workingmen of New York City addressed a letter to the workers of the United States, showing that the same causes of unrest and agitation existed at all points.

"These evils," they said, "arise from the moral obliquity of the fastidious, and the cupidity of the avaricious. They consist in an illiberal opinion of the worth and rights of the laboring classes, an unjust estimation of their moral, physical, and intellectual powers, and unwise misapprehension of the effects which would result from the cultivation of their minds and the improvement of their condition, and an avaricious propensity to avail of their laborious services, at the lowest possible rate of wages for which they can be induced to work."

The evils protested against here did not lessen as time went on. Irish emigration had begun in 1836, and speedily drove out American labor, which was in any case insufficient for the need. A lowered wage was the immediate consequence, the foreigner having no standard of living that included more than bare necessaries. At this distance from the struggle it is easy to see that the new life was educational for the emigrant, and also forced the American worker into new and often broader channels. But for those involved such perception was impossible, and the new-comers were regarded with something like hatred. English and German emigrants followed, to give place in their turn to the French-Canadian, who at present in great degree monopolizes the mills.

In the beginning little or no effort was made toward healthful conditions of work and life, or more than the merest hint of education. England, in which far worse conditions had existed, had, early in the century, seen the necessity of remedial legislation. But though the first English Factory Act was passed in 1802, it was not till 1844 that women and children were brought under its provisions. The first one, known as the Health and Morals Act, was the result of the discovery made first by voluntary, then by appointed inspectors, that neither health nor morals remained for factory-workers, and that hopeless deterioration would result unless government interfered at once. Hideous epidemic diseases, an extinction of any small natural endowment of moral sense, and a daily life far below that of the brutes, had showed themselves as industries and the attendant competition developed; and the story in all its horror may be read in English Bluebooks and the record of government inspectors, and made accessible in the works of Giffen, Toynbee, Engels, and other names identified with reform.

The bearing of these acts upon legislation in our country is so strong that a summary of the chief points must find mention here. In the Act of 1802 the hours of work, which had been from fourteen to sixteen hours a day, were fixed at twelve. All factories were required to be frequently whitewashed, and to have a sufficient number of windows, though these provisions applied only to apprenticed operatives. In 1819 an act forbade the employment of any child under nine years of age, and in 1825 Saturday was made a half-holiday. Night work was forbidden in 1831, and for all under eighteen the working day was made twelve hours, with nine for Saturday.

By 1847 public opinion demanded still more change for the better, and the day was made ten hours for working women and young persons between thirteen and eighteen years, though they were allowed to work between six A.M. and six P.M., with an allowance of an hour and a half at mealtime. Our own evils, while in many points far less, still were in the same direction. Here and there a like evasion of responsibility and of the provisions of the law was to be found. Even when a corps of inspectors were appointed, they were bribed, hoodwinked, and generally put off the track, while the provisions in regard to the shielding of dangerous machinery, cleanliness, etc., were ignored by every possible method. Were law obeyed and its provisions thoroughly carried out, English factory operatives would be better protected than those of any other country, America not accepted. Sanitary conditions are required to be good. All factories are to be kept clean, as any effluvia arising from closets, etc., renders the owners liable to a fine. The generation of gas, dust, etc., must be neutralized by the inventions for this purpose, so that operatives may not be harmed thereby. Any manufacturer allowing machinery to remain unprotected is to be prosecuted; and there are minute regulations forbidding any child or young person to clean or walk between the fixed and traversing part of any self-acting machine while in motion. At least two hours must be allowed for meals, nor are these to be taken in any room where manufacturing is going on.

For this country such provisions were long delayed, nor have we even now the necessary regulations as to the protection of machinery. In the early days, though many mills were built by men who sought honestly to provide their employees with as many alleviations as the nature of the work admitted, many more were absolutely blind to anything but their own interest. With the disabilities resulting we are to deal at another point. It is sufficient to say here, that the struggle for factory-workers became more and more severe, and has remained so to the present day.

The increase of women workers in this field had been steady. In 1865 women operatives in the factories of Massachusetts were 32,239, or nineteen per cent of men operatives. In 1875 they were 83,207, or twenty-six per cent; and the increase since that date has been in like proportion. From the time of their first employment in mills the increase has been on themselves over three hundred per cent. In Massachusetts mills women and children are from two thirds to five sixths of all employed, and the proportion in all the manufacturing portions of New England is nearly the same.

In judging the factory system as a whole, it is necessary to glance at the conditions of home work preceding it. These are given in full detail in historical and economical treatises, notably in Lecky's "History of the Eighteenth Century," and in Dr. Kay's "Moral and Physical Condition of the Working Classes." A list of the more important authorities on the subject will be found in the general bibliography at the end.

The conditions that prevailed in other countries were less strenuous with us, but the same objections to the domestic system held good at many points. In weaving, the looms occupied large part of the family living space, and overcrowding and all its evils were inevitable. Drunkenness was more common, as well as the stealing of materials by dishonest workers. Time was lost in going for material and in returning it, and only half as much was accomplished. Homes were uncared for and often filthy, and the work was done in half-lighted, airless rooms.

These conditions are often reproduced in part even to-day in buildings not adapted to their present use; but as a whole it is certain that the homes of factory-workers are cleaner, that regulation has proved beneficial, that light and air are furnished in better measure, and that overcrowding has become impossible. This applies only to textile manufactures, where machines must have room.

In an admirable chapter on the "Factory System," prepared by Colonel Carroll D. Wright for the Tenth Census of the United States, he takes up in detail the objections urged against it. These are as follows:—

A. The factory system necessitates the employment of women and children to an injurious extent, and consequently its tendency is to destroy family life and ties and domestic habits, and ultimately the home.

B. Factory employments are injurious to health.

C. The factory system is productive of intemperance, unthrift, and poverty.

D. It feeds prostitution, and swells the criminal list.

E. It tends to intellectual degeneracy.

Under "A" there is small defence to be made. The employment of married women is fruitful of evil, and the proportion of these in Massachusetts is 23.8 per cent. Wherever this per cent is high, infant mortality is very great, being 23.5 per cent for Massachusetts and 19 per cent for Connecticut and New Hampshire. The "Labor Bureau Reports" for New Jersey treat the subject in detail, and are strongly opposed to the employment of mothers of young children outside the home; and the conclusion is the same at other points.

In the matter of general injury to health, under "B," it is stated that many factories are far better ventilated and lighted than the homes of the operatives. Ignorant employees cannot be impressed with the need of care on these points, and the air in their homes is foul and productive of disease. A cotton-mill is often better ventilated than a court-room or a lecture-room. A well-built factory allows not less than six hundred cubic feet of air space to a person, thirty to sixty cubic feet a minute being required. Ranke, in his "Elements of Physiology," makes it thirty-five a minute.

The homes of operatives have steadily improved in character; and wherever there is an intelligent class of operatives, regulations are obeyed, and sanitary conditions are fair and often perfect, while the tendency is toward more and more care in every respect. Operatives' homes are often better guarded against sanitary evils than those of farmers or the ordinary laborer.

Under "C" it is shown conclusively that the factory has diminished intemperance,—Reybaud's "History of the Factory Movement" giving full statistics on this point, as well as in regard to the growth of banks and benefit societies. The standard of living is higher here, but there are countless evidences of thrift and a general rise in condition.

In the matter of prostitution, under "D," it is shown that but eight per cent of this class come from the factory, twenty-nine per cent being from domestic service. In Lynn, Mass., a town chosen for illustration because of the large percentage of factory operatives, it was found that but seven per cent of those arrested were from this class; and this is true of all points where the foreign-born element is not largely in the majority.

Last comes the question of intellectual degeneracy, under "E." On this point it is hardly fair to make comparison of the present worker with the Lowell girl of the first period of factory labor, since she came from an educated class, and was distinctively American. Taking workers as a whole, a vast advance shows itself. Regularity and fixed rule have often been the first education in this direction; and the life, even with all its drawbacks, has the right to be regarded as an educational force, and the first step in this direction for a large proportion of the workers in it. There are points where the arraignment of Alfred, in his "History of the Factory Movement," is still true.[16] He speaks of it as a "system which jested with civilization, laughed at humanity, and made a mockery of every law of physical and moral health and of the principles of natural and social order." The "Report of the New York Bureau of Labor for 1885" shows that the charge might still be righteously brought; and Mr. Bishop gives the same testimony in his reports for New Jersey. Evil is still part of the system, and well-nigh inseparable from the methods of production and the conditions of competition; but that there are evils is recognized at all points, and thus their continuance will not and cannot be perpetuated.

FOOTNOTE:

[16] Alfred's History of the Factory Movement, vol. i. p. 27.



IV.

RISE AND GROWTH OF TRADES UP TO THE PRESENT TIME.

Defeat and discouragement attend well-nigh every step of the attempt to reach any conclusions regarding women workers in the early years of the century. It is true that 1832 witnessed an attempt at an investigation into their status, but the results were of slight value, actual figures being almost unattainable. The census of 1840 gave more, and that of 1850 showed still larger gain. In that of 1840 the number of women and children in the silk industry was taken; but while the same is true of the later one, there is apparently no record of them in any printed form. The New York State Census for the years 1845 and 1855 gave some space to the work of women and children, but there is nothing of marked value till another decade had passed.

It is to the United States Census for 1860 that we must look for the first really definite statements as to the occupations of women and children. Scattered returns of an earlier date had shown that the percentage of those employed in factories was a steadily increasing one, but in what ratio was considered as unimportant. In fact, statistics of any order had small place, nor was their need seriously felt, save here and there, in the mind of the student.

To comprehend the blankness of this period in all matters relating to social and economic questions, it is necessary to recall the fact that no such needs as those of the mother country pressed upon us. To those who looked below the surface and watched the growing tide of emigration, it was plain that they were, in no distant day, to arise; but for the most part, even for those compelled to severest toil, it was taken for granted that full support was a certainty, and that the men or women who did not earn a comfortable living could blame no one but themselves.

There were other reasons why any enumeration of women workers seemed not only superfluous but undesirable. For the better order, prejudice was still strong enough against all who deviated from custom or tradition to make each new candidate for a living shrink from any publicity that could be avoided. Society frowned upon the woman who dared to strike out in new paths, and thus made them even more thorny than necessity had already done.

It is impossible for the present, with its full freedom of opportunity, to realize, or credit even, the difficulties of the past, or even of a period hardly more than a generation ago. It was of this time that Dr. Emily Blackwell, one of the pioneers in higher work for women, wrote:—

"Women were hindered at every turn by endless restraint in endless minor detail of habit, custom, tradition, etc.... Most women who have been engaged in any new departure would testify that the difficulties of the undertaking lay far more in these artificial hindrances and burdens than in their own health, or in the nature of the work itself."

It was this shrinking from publicity, among all save the most ordinary workers, by this time largely foreign, that made one difficulty in the way of census enumerators. By 1860 it had become plain that an enormous increase in their numbers was taking place, and that no just idea of this increase could be formed so long as industrial statistics were made up with no distinction as to sex. The spread of the factory system and the constant invention of new machinery had long ago removed from homes the few branches of the work that could be carried on within them. Processes had divided and subdivided. The mill-worker knew no longer every phase of the work implied in the production of her web, but became more and more a part of the machine itself. This was especially true of all textile industries,—cotton or woollen, with their many ramifications,—and becomes more so with each year of progress.

Cotton and woollen manufactures, with the constantly increasing subdivisions of all the processes involved, counted their thousands upon thousands of women workers. Another industry had been one of the first opened to women, much of its work being done at home. Shoemaking, with all its processes of binding and finishing, had its origin for this country in Massachusetts, to the ingenuity and enterprise of whose mechanics is due the fact that the United States has attained the highest perfection in this branch. Lynn, Mass., as far back as 1750, had become famous for its women's shoes, the making of which was carried on in the families of the manufacturers. At first no especial skill was shown; but in 1750 a Welsh shoemaker, named John Adam Dagyr, settled there and acquired great fame for himself and the town for his superior workmanship. In 1788 the exports of women's shoes from Lynn were one hundred thousand pairs, while in 1795 over three hundred thousand pairs were sent out, and by 1870 the number had reached eleven million.

Beginning with the employment of a few dozen women, twenty other towns took up the same industry, and furnish their quota of the general return. The Massachusetts Bureau of Labor gives, in its report for 1873, the number of women employed as 11,193, with some six hundred female children. Maine and New Hampshire followed, and both have a small proportion of women workers engaged in the industry, while it has gradually extended, New England always retaining the lead, till New York, Philadelphia, and many Western and Southern towns rank high in the list of producers.

As in every other trade, processes have divided and subdivided. Sewing-machines did away with the tedious binding by hand, which had its compensations, however, in the fact that it was done at home. There is only incidental record of the numbers employed in this industry till the later census returns; but the percentage outside of Massachusetts remained a very small one, as even in Maine the total number given in the Report of the Bureau of Labor for 1887 is but 533, an almost inappreciable per cent of the population. The returns of the census of 1880 give the total number of women in this employment as 21,000, the proportion still remaining largest for New England.

Straw-braiding was another of the early trades, and the first straw bonnet braided in the United States was made by Miss Betsey Metcalf, of Providence, R.I., in 1789. For many years straw-plaiting was done at home; but the quality of our material was always inferior to that grown abroad, our climate making it much more brittle and difficult to handle. The wage at first was from two to three dollars a week; but as factories were established where imported braid was made up, the sum sometimes reached five dollars. The census of 1860 gave the total number of women employed as 1,430. According to the census of 1870, nine States had taken up this industry, Massachusetts employing the largest number, and Vermont the least, the total number being 12,594; while in 1880 the number had risen to 19,998.

Up to the time of the Civil War, aside from factory employments, the trades open to women were limited, and the majority of their occupations were still carried on at home, or with but few in numbers, as in dressmaking-establishments, millinery, and the like. With the new conditions brought about at this time, and the vast number of women thrown upon their own resources, came the flocking into trades for which there had been no training, and which had been considered as the exclusive property of men. A surplus of untrained workers at once appeared, and this and general financial depression brought the wage to its lowest terms; but when this had in part ended, the trades still remained open. At the close of the war some hundred were regarded as practicable. Ten years later the number had more than doubled, and to-day we find over four hundred occupations; while, as new inventions arise, the number of possibilities in this direction steadily increases. The many considerations involved in these facts will be met later on. General conditions of trades as a whole are given in the census returns, though even there hardly more than approximately, little work of much real value being accomplished till the formation of the labor bureaus, with which we are soon to deal. Every allowance, however, is to be made for the Census Bureau, which found itself almost incapable of overcoming many of the lions in the way. The tone of the remarks on this point in that for 1860 is almost plaintive, nor is it less so in the next; but methods have clarified, and the work is far more authoritative than for long seemed possible.

Innumerable difficulties hedged about the enumerators for 1860. Rooted objection to answering the questions in detail was not one of the least. Unfamiliarity with the newer phases of the work was another, and thus it happened that the volume when issued was full of discrepancies. The tables of occupations, for example, characterized but a little over two thousand persons as connected with woollen and worsted manufacture; while the tables of manufactures showed that considerably more than forty thousand persons were engaged, upon the average, in these branches of manufacturing industry.

The returns gave the number of women employed in various branches of manufacture as two hundred and eighty-five thousand, but stated that the figures were approximate merely, it being impossible to secure full returns. It was found that three and a half per cent of the population of Massachusetts were in the factories, and nearly the same proportion in Connecticut and Rhode Island; but details were of the most meagre description, and conclusions based upon them were likely to err at every point. Its value was chiefly educative, since the failure it represents pointed to a change in methods, and more preparation than had at any time been considered necessary in the officials who had the matter in charge.

The census for 1870 reaped the benefits of the new determination; yet even of this General Walker was forced to write: "This census concludes that from one to two hundred thousand workers are not accounted for, from the difficulty experienced in getting proper returns. The nice distinctions of foreign statisticians are impossible." And he adds:—

"Whoever will consider the almost utter want of apprenticeship in this country, the facility with which pursuits are taken up and abandoned, and the variety and, indeed, seeming incongruity of the numerous industrial offices that are frequently united in one person, will appreciate the force of this argument.... The organization of domestic service in the United States is so crude that no distinction whatever can be successfully maintained. A census of occupations in which the attempt should be made to reach anything like European completeness in this matter would result in the return of tens of thousands of 'housekeepers' and hundreds of thousands of 'cooks,' who were simply 'maids of all work,' being the single servants of the families in which they are employed."[17]

This census gives the total number of women workers, so far as it could be determined, as 1,836,288. Of these, 191,000 were from ten to fifteen years of age; 1,594,783, from sixteen to fifty-nine; and 50,404, sixty years and over, the larger proportion of the latter division being given as engaged in agricultural employments.

In the first period of age, females pursuing gainful occupations are to males as one to three; in the second, one to six; and in the third, one to twelve. The actual increase over the numbers given in the census for 1860 is 1,551,288. The reasons for this almost incredible variation have already been suggested; and their operation became even stronger in the interval between that of 1870 and 1880. By this time methods were far more skilful and returns more minute, and thus the figures are to be accepted with more confidence than was possible with the earlier ones. The factory system, extending into almost every trade, brought about more and more differentiation of occupations, some two hundred of which were by 1880 open to women.

Comparing the rates of increase during the period between 1860 and 1870, women wage-earners had increased 19 per cent, the increase for men being but 6/97. Among the women, 6.7 per cent were engaged in agriculture, 33.4 in personal service, 7.3 in trade and transportation, and 16.5 in manufactures. In 1880 women engaged in gainful occupations formed 5.28 of the total population, and 14.68 of females over ten years of age. The present rate is not yet[18] determined; but while figures will not be accessible for some months to come, it is stated definitely that the increase will indicate nearer ten than five per cent.

The total number employed is given for this census as 2,647,157. The occupations are divided into four classes: first, agriculture; second, professional and personal services; third, trade and transportation; fourth, manufactures, mechanical and mining industries. In agriculture, 594,510 women were at work; in professional and personal services, this including domestic service, 1,361,295; trade and transportation, this including shop-girls, etc., had 59,364; while 631,988 were engaged in the last division of manufacturing, etc. Of girls from ten to fifteen years of age, agriculture had 135,862; professional and personal services, 107,830; trade, 2,547; and manufacturing, etc., 46,930. From sixteen to fifty-nine years of age there were in agriculture 435,920; in professional and personal services, 1,215,189; trade and transportation, 54,849; and manufacturing, etc., 577,157. From sixty years and upward the four classes were divided as follows: Agriculture, 22,728; professional, etc., 38,276; trade, etc., 1,968; and manufacturing, etc., 7,901.

Even for this record numbers must be added, since many women work at home and make no return of the trade they have chosen, while many others are held by pride from admitting that they work at all. But the addition of a hundred thousand for the entire country would undoubtedly cover this discrepancy in full; nor are these numbers too large, though it is impossible to more than approximate them.

Suggestive as these figures are, they are still more so when we come to their apportionment to States. They become then a history of the progress of trades, and women's share in them; and a glance enables one to determine the proportion employed in each. In the table which follows, industries are condensed under a general head, no mention being made of the many subdivisions, each ranking as a trade, but going to make up the business as a whole. It is the result of statistics taken in fifty of the principal cities, and includes only those industries in which women have the largest share.[19]

=================================================================== Total Per Cent Per Cent Number. of Males. of Children. Females. - - - - - Book-binding 10,612 4,831 4,553 616 Carpet-weaving 20,371 4,960 4,207 833 Men's Clothing 160,813 4,801 5,037 159 Women's Clothing 25,192 1,030 8,833 137 Cotton Goods 185,472 3,457 4,914 1,629 Men's Furnishing Goods 11,174 1,140 8,560 300 Hosiery and Knitting 28,885 2,602 6,130 1,268 Millinery and Lace 25,687 1,120 8,637 243 Shirts 6,555 1,481 8,000 513 Silk and Silk Goods 31,337 2,992 5,232 1,776 Straw Goods 10,948 2,991 6,850 154 Tobacco 32,756 4,544 3,290 2,166 Umbrellas and Canes 3,608 4,169 5,152 679 Woollen Goods 86,504 54,544 3,395 1,174 Worsted Goods 18,800 5,431 5,038 1,540 ===================================================================

In obtaining these averages, it was found necessary to equalize the returns of Pittsburg and Philadelphia, the former having but 4.55 per cent of women workers, while Philadelphia had 31. This resulted from the fact that the industries of Philadelphia are the manufacturing of textiles and other goods, which employ women chiefly; while Pittsburg has principally iron and steel mills. New York was found to have 31 per cent of women workers; Lowell, Mass., had 47.42, and Manchester, N.H., 53; Pittsburg and Wilmington, Del., having the lowest percentage.

The gain of women in trades over the census of 1870 was sixty-four per cent, the total percentage of women workers for the whole country being forty-nine. The ten years just ended show a still larger percentage; and many of the trades which a decade since still hesitated to admit women, are now open, those regarded as most peculiarly the province of men having received many feminine recruits. These isolated or scattered instances hardly belong here, and are mentioned simply as indications of the general trend. Wise or unwise, experiment is the order of the day, its principal service in many cases being to test untried powers, and break down barriers, built up often by mere tradition, and not again to rise till women themselves decide when and where.

Taking States in their alphabetical order, the census of 1880 gives the number of working-women for each as follows:[20]—

Alabama, 124,056. Arizona, 471. Arkansas, 30,616. California, 28,200. Colorado, 4,779. Connecticut, 48,670. Dakota, 2,851. Delaware, 7,928. District of Columbia, 19,658. Florida, 17,781. Georgia, 152,322. Idaho, 291. Illinois, 106,101. Indiana, 51,422. Iowa, 44,845. Kansas, 54,422. Louisiana, 95,052. Maine, 33,528. Massachusetts, 174,183. Michigan, 55,013. Minnesota, 25,077. Mississippi, 110,416. Missouri, 62,943. Montana, 507. Nebraska, 10,455. Nevada, 403. New Hampshire, 30,128. New Jersey, 66,776. New Mexico, 2,262. New York, 360,381. North Carolina, 86,976. Ohio, 112,639. Oregon, 2,779. Pennsylvania, 216,980. Rhode Island, 29,859. South Carolina, 120,087. Tennessee, 56,408. Texas, 58,943. Utah, 2,877. Vermont, 16,167. Washington Territory, 1,060. West Virginia, 11,508. Wisconsin, 46,395. Wyoming, 464.

FOOTNOTES:

[17] Remarks on Tables of Occupations, Ninth Census of the United States, Population and Social Statistics, p. 663.

[18] June, 1893.

[19] The table is copied with minute care from that given in the last census; and while it shows one or two deficiencies, the writer is in no sense responsible for them, its accuracy, as a whole, not being affected by the slight discrepancy referred to.

[20] The tables in this department of the census for 1890 are not yet ready for the public; but the department states that the increase in women wage-earners averages about ten per cent.



V.

LABOR BUREAUS AND THEIR WORK IN RELATION TO WOMEN.

The difficulties encountered by the enumerators of the United States Census, and the growing conviction that much more minute and organized effort must be given if the real status of women workers was to be obtained, had already been matter of grave discussion. The labor question pressed upon all who looked below the surface of affairs; and very shortly after the census of 1860 a proposition was made in Boston to establish there a formal bureau of labor, whose business should be to fill in all the blanks that in the general work were passed over.

Many facts, all pointing to the necessity of some such organization, lay before the men who pondered the matter,—factory abuses of many orders, the startling increase of pauperism and crime, with other causes which can find small space here. With difficulty consent was obtained to establish a bureau which should inquire into the causes of all this; and the first report was given to the public in 1870. It was descriptive rather than statistical, and necessarily so. Methods were still a matter of question and experiment. The public had small interest in the project, and it was essential to outline, not only the work to be done, but the reasons for its need.

Naturally, then, the volume touched upon many abuses,—children in factories, and the factory system as a whole; the homes of workers, and their needs in sanitary and other directions; and toward the end a few pages of special comment on the hard lives of working-women as a whole.

The report for 1871 followed the same lines, giving more detail to each. That for 1872 took up various phases of women's work,[21] with some of the general conditions then existing. For the following year elaborate tables of the cost of living were given, and are invaluable as matters of reference; and in 1874 came a no less important contribution to social science in the report on the "Homes of Working-People." Those of working-women were of course included, but there was still no description of many of the conditions known to hedge them about. Each inquiry, however, turned attention more and more in this direction, and emphasized the need of some work given exclusively to women workers.

In 1875 attention was directed to the health of working-women, and a portion of the report was devoted to the special effects of certain forms of employment upon the health of women,[22] the education of children, the conditions of families, etc. That for 1876 discussed the question of wives' earnings, and gave tables of what proportion they made; and that for 1877 took up "Pauperism and Crime," in the growing amount of which it was claimed by many that the worker had large share.

In 1878 large space was given to education and the work of the young, for whom the half-time system was urged. The conjugal condition of wives and mothers was also considered, and the bearing of their work upon the home. The financial distress of the period had affected wages, and the report for 1879 considered the effect of this, with the condition of the "unemployed," the tramp question, and other phases of the problem. With 1880 and the ending of the first decade of work in this direction came a fuller report on the social life of workingmen and the divorces in Massachusetts; 1881 made a plea for uniform hours, and 1882 was devoted to wages, prices, and profits, and further details of the life of operatives within their homes; and 1883 found reason again to go over the question of wages and prices.

I have given this detail because, when one views the work of the bureau as a whole, it will be seen that each year formed one step toward the final result, which has been of most vital bearing upon all since accomplished in the same direction for women. Until the appearance of the report for 1884, on the "Working-Girls of Boston," there had been no absolute and authoritative knowledge as to their lives, their earnings, and their status as a whole. Their numbers were equally unknown, nor was there interest in their condition, save here and there among special students of social science. On the other hand there was a popular impression that the ranks of prostitution were recruited from the manufactory, and that a certain stigma necessarily rested upon the factory-worker and indeed upon working-girls as a class.

Six divisions had been found essential to the thorough handling of the subject; and these divisions have formed the basis of all work since done in the same lines, whether in State bureaus or in that of the United States, soon to find mention here. It was under the direction of Colonel Carroll D. Wright that the Massachusetts Bureau did its careful and scientific work; and he represents the most valuable labor in this direction that the country has had, deserving to rank in this matter, as Tench Coxe still does in the manufacturing system, as the "Father" of the labor-bureau system.

The six divisions settled upon as essential to any general system of reports were as follows:—

1. Social Condition. 2. Occupations, Places in which Employed. 3. Hours of Labor, Time Lost, etc. 4. Physical and Sanitary Condition. 5. Economic Condition. 6. Moral Condition.

The Tenth Census of the United States gave the number of women employed in the city of Boston as 38,881, 20,000 of whom were in occupations other than domestic service. Each year, as we have already seen, had touched more and more nearly upon the facts bound up in their lives, but it had become necessary to determine with an accuracy that could not be brought in question precisely the facts given under the six headings. To the surprise of the special agents detailed for this work, who had anticipated disagreeables of every order, the girls themselves took the liveliest interest in the matter, answered questions freely, and gave every facility for the fullest searching into each phase involved. American girls were found to form but 22.3 per cent of the whole number of working-women in Massachusetts, of whom but 58.4 per cent had been born in that State.

The results reached in this report may be regarded as a summary, not only of conditions for Boston, but for all the large manufacturing towns of New England, later inquiry justifying this conclusion.

The average age of working-girls was found to be 24.81 years, and the average at which they began work, 16.81; the average time actually at work, 7.49 years, and the average number of occupations followed 178, the time spent in each being 4.43 years. Of the whole, 85 per cent were found to do their own housework and sewing, either wholly or in part.

But 22 per cent were allowed any vacation, and but 3.9 per cent received pay during that time, the average vacation being 1.87 weeks. A little over 26 per cent worked the full year without loss of time, while an average of 12.32 weeks was lost by 73 per cent. The average time worked by all during the year was 42.95 weeks. In personal service 26.5 per cent worked more than ten hours a day; in trade, 19.5 per cent were so employed, and in manufactures 5.6 per cent. In all occupations 8.9 per cent worked more than ten hours a day, and 8.6 per cent more than sixty hours a week.

In the matter of health 76.2 per cent of the whole number employed were in good health.

The average weekly earnings for the average time employed, 42.95 weeks, was $6.01, and the average weekly earnings of all the working-girls of Boston for a whole year were $4.91. The average weekly income, including earnings, assistance, and income from extra work done by many, was $5.17 a year.

The average yearly income from all sources was $269.70, and the average yearly expenses for positive needs $261.30, leaving but $7.77, on the average, as a margin for books, amusements, etc. Those making savings are 11 per cent of the whole, their average savings being $72.15 per year. A few run in debt, the average debt being $36.60 for the less than 3 per cent incurring debt.

Of the total average yearly expenses, these percentages being based upon the law laid down by Dr. Engels of Prussia, as to percentage of expenses belonging to subsistence, 63 per cent must be expended for food and lodging, and 25 per cent for clothing,—a total of 88 per cent of total expenses for subsistence and clothing, leaving but 12 per cent of total expense to be distributed to the other needs of living.

These are, briefly summed up, the results of the investigation, in which the single workers constituted 88.9 of the whole, and the married but 6 per cent, widows making up the number. It is impossible in these limits to give further detail on these points, all readers being referred to the report itself.

The same questions that had first sought answer in New England were even more pressing in New York. As in most subjects of deep popular or scientific importance, the sense of need for more data by which to judge seemed in the air; and already the Labor Bureau of the State of New York, under the efficient guidance of Mr. Charles F. Peck, had begun a course of inquiries of the same nature. For years, beginning with the New York "Tribune," in the days when Margaret Fuller worked for it and touched at times upon social questions,—always in the mind of Horace Greeley, its founder,—there had been periodical stirs of feeling in behalf of sewing-women. It was known that the enormous influx of foreign labor naturally massed at this point, more than could ever be possible elsewhere, had brought with it evils suspected, but still not yet defined in any sense to be trusted. Indications on the surface were seriously bad, but actual investigation had never tested their nature or degree. The report of the bureau for 1885, which was given to the public in 1886, met with a degree of interest and study not usually accorded these volumes, and roused public feeling to an unexpected extent.

Mr. Peck brought to the work much the same order of interest that had marked that of Colonel Wright, and wrote in his introduction to the report the summary of the situation for New York City:—

"By reason of its immense population, its numerous and extensive manufactures, its wealth, its poverty, and general cosmopolitan character, New York City presents a field for investigation into the subject of 'Working-Women, their Trades, Wages, Home and Social Conditions,' unequalled by any other centre of population in America. It opens up a wider and more diversified field for inquiry, study, and classification of the various industries in which women seek employment, than can be found even in European cities, with but few if any exceptions. It is for such reasons that the inquiry of the bureau into this special subject has been largely confined to the city named."

Two hundred and forty-seven trades are given in this report, in which some two hundred thousand women were found to be engaged, this being exclusive of domestic service. The divisions of the subject were substantially those adopted by the Massachusetts Bureau; but the numbers and complexity of conditions made the inquiry far more difficult. Its results and their bearings will find place later on. It is sufficient now to say that the two may be regarded as summarizing all phases of work for women, and as an index to the difficulties at all other points in the country.

The Bureau of Labor for Connecticut sent out its first report in the same year (1885), and included investigations and statistics in the same lines, though, for reasons specified, in much more limited degree. That for 1886 for the same State took up in detail some points in regard to the work of both women and children, which, for want of both time and space, had been omitted in the first, their returns coinciding in all important particulars with those of the other bureaus.

In 1886 the California Bureau of Labor touched the same points, but only incidentally, in its general analysis of the labor question. In the following year, however, the report covering the years 1887 and 1888 took up the question under the same aspects as those handled in the special reports on this topic, and gave full treatment of the wages, lives, and general conditions for working-women. It included, also, the facts, so far as they could be ascertained, of the nature, wages, and conditions of domestic service in California,—the first attempt at treating this difficult subject with any accuracy. The apprentice system, and an important chapter on manual training and its bearings make this report one of the most valuable, from the social point of view, that has been given, though where all are invaluable it is hard to characterize one above another.

Mr. Tobin, for California, and Mr. Hutchins, for Iowa, seemed moved at the same time in much the same way,—the Iowa report for 1887 treating the many questions involved with that largeness which has thus far distinguished work in this direction. Kansas, in the report for 1888, gave general conditions, women being treated incidentally; and Minnesota, in the report for the years 1887 and 1888, gave a chapter on working-women, wages, etc.

Colorado followed, giving in the report for 1887 and 1888, under the management of Commissioner Rice, a chapter on women wage-workers, in which space is given to certified complaints of the women themselves, as to what they consider the disabilities of their special trades. Domestic service, with some of its abuses, was also considered, and is of much value. These reports sum up the work so far done in the West, where labor bureaus are of recent growth. The spirit of inquiry is, however, equally alive; and each year will see minuter detail and a deeper scientific spirit.

Maine, in the report for 1888, took up many questions of general interest, with their incidental bearings on the work of women; and in 1889 came another report from Kansas, in which the labor commissioner, Mr. Frank Betton, gave large space to an investigation conducted under many difficulties, but covering the ground very fully. A very full report from Michigan, under Commissioner Henry A. Robinson, was issued in 1892, nearly two hundred pages being given to an exhaustive examination into the conditions of women wage-earners in the State, its methods owing much to the work which had preceded it.

With this background of admirable work always, no matter what might be the limitations, making each report a little broader in purpose and minuter in detail, the way was plain for something even more comprehensive. This was furnished by the Bureau of Labor of the United States, which had changed its name, and become, in June, 1887, the Department of Labor, a part of the Department of the Interior. This report—the fourth from the bureau, and issued in 1888—was entitled "Working-Women in Large Cities," and included investigations made in twenty-two cities, from Boston to San Francisco and San Jose.

All that long experience had demonstrated as most important in such work was brought to bear. The investigation covered manual labor in cities, excluding textile industries, save incidentally as these had already been treated, as well as domestic service. Textile factories are usually outside of large cities, and it was the object to discover the opportunities of employment in the way of manual labor in cities themselves.

Three hundred and forty-three distinct industries showed themselves, and others were found which were not included, it being safe to say that some four hundred may be considered open to women. As before stated, many are simply subdivisions, made by the constantly increasing complexity of machinery. The agents of the department carried their work into the lowest and worst places in the cities named, because in such places are to be found women who are struggling for a livelihood in most respectable callings,—living in them as a matter of necessity, since they cannot afford to live otherwise, but leaving them whenever wages are sufficient to admit of change.

It is this report which forms the summary of all the work that has preceded it, and that gives the truest exponent of all present conditions. It is only necessary to add to it the summaries of the State reports at other points, to see the aspect of the question as a whole; and thus we are ready to consider by its aid the general rates of wages and of the status of the trades of every nature in which women are now engaged.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] Report for 1872, pp. 59-108.

[22] Report for 1875, pp. 67-112.



VI.

PRESENT WAGE-RATES IN THE UNITED STATES.

Under this heading it is proposed to include, not only the trades just specified as coming under the investigations recorded in "Working-Women in Large Cities," but also such data as can be gleaned from all the labor reports which have given any attention to this phase of the labor question. Naturally, then, we turn to the report of the Massachusetts Bureau for 1881, the first statement of these points, and compare it with the results obtained in the last report from Washington, as well as with the returns from the various States where investigation of the question has been made.

Exceptionally favorable conditions would seem to belong to the year in which the report for 1884 appeared. The financial distress of 1877, with its results, had passed. New industries of many orders had opened up for women, and trade in all its forms called for workers and gave almost constant employ, save in the few occupations which have a distinct season, and oblige those engaged in them to divide their time between two if a living is assured.

A distinction must at once be made in the definition of earnings. In speaking of them, there are necessarily three designations,—wages, earnings, and income. Wages represent the actual pay per week at the time employed, with no reference to the number of weeks' employment during the year. Earnings are the total receipts for any year from wages. Thus, for example, a girl is paid $5 a week wages, and works forty weeks of her year. Her earnings would then be for the year $200, though her wages of $5 per week would indicate that she earned $260 a year; while in fact her average weekly earnings would be for the whole year $3.84. Income is her total receipts for the year from all sources: wages, extra work, help from friends or from investments; in fact, any receipts from which expenses can be paid.

In preparing the tables of these reports, the highest, the lowest, the average, and the general average were brought into a final comparison. Often but one wage is given, and it then becomes naturally both highest and lowest; but all figures are made to indicate an entire occupation or branch of industry, and not a few high or low paid employees in that branch. It is only with the final comparison that we are able to deal, the reader being referred to the reports themselves for the invaluable details given at full length and including many hundred pages.

The divisions of occupations are the same as those of the tenth census, and the tables are made on the same system. To determine the general conditions for the twenty thousand at work, it was necessary to have accurate detail as to one thousand; and, in fact, 1,032 were interviewed. Directly after the work in this direction had ended, and before the report was ready for publication, a general reduction of ten per cent in wages took place, and this must be kept in mind in dealing with the returns recorded. In this, recapitulation is given in full, and, as will be seen, includes all occupations open to women.

RECAPITULATION. ======================================================================== BOSTON. OTHER PARTS OF MASS. OTHER STATES. Number Average Number Average Number Average Weekly Weekly Weekly Earnings Earnings Earnings - - - Government and professional 7 $5 57 5 $6 40 10 $6 28 Domestic and personal office 178 5 94 27 5 33 21 4 69 Trade and transportation 221 5 00 4 9 25 4 7 25 Manufactures and mechanical industries 1,293 6 22 72 7 06 49 7 58 - - - All occupations 1,699 $6 03 108 $6 68 84 $6 69 ========================================================================

The commissioners of the New York State Bureau of Labor followed a slightly different method. The returns are no less minute, but are given under the heading of each trade, two hundred and forty-seven of which were investigated. The wages of workwomen for the entire year run from $3.50 to $4 a week, the general average not being given, though later returns make it $5.85. This is, however, for skilled labor; and as a vast proportion of women workers in New York City are engaged in sewing, the poorest paid of all industries, we must accept the first figures as nearer the truth. An expert on shirts receives as high as $12 a week, in some cases $15; but in slop work, and under the sweating-system, wages fall to $2.50 or $3 per week, and at times less. Mr. Peck found cloakmakers working on the most expensive and perfectly finished garments for 40 cents a day, a full day's pay being from 50 to 60 cents.[23] In other cases a day's work brought in but 25 cents, and seventeen overalls of blue denim gave a return of 75 cents. Two and a half cents each is paid for the making of boys' gingham waists, with trimming on neck and sleeves, including the button-holes; and the women who made these sat sixteen hours at the sewing-machine, with a result of 25 cents.[24]

This was for irregular work. Women employed on clothing in general, working for reputable firms, receive from $4.50 to $6 per week. In the tobacco manufacture, in which great numbers are employed, $9 is the lowest actual earnings, and $20 the highest per week. In cigarettes, the pay ranges from $4 to $15 per week. In dry-goods, with ten divisions of employment,—cashiers, bundle-girls, saleswomen, floor-walkers, seamstresses, cloakmakers, cash-girls, stock-girls, milliners, and sewing-girls,—the lowest sum per week is $1.50, paid to cash-girls, and the highest paid to floor-walkers, $16. On the east side of the city, shop girls receive often as low as $3 per week; in a few cases specified, $2.50 per week.[25]

In laundry-work, which includes several divisions, wages weekly range from $7.50 to $10, though ironers of special excellence sometimes make from $12 to $15 per week. In millinery the wages are from $6 to $7 per week. In preserving and fruit-canning wages are from $3.50 to $10, the average worker earning about $5 per week. Mr. Peck states that in fashion trades the two distinct seasons bring the year's earnings to about six months. "Learners" in the trades coming under this head receive $1.50 per week. Saleswomen suffer also from season trade, as it necessitates reduction of force. The better class of workers receive from $8 to $15 per week, while heads of departments range from $25 to $50, or even higher, for exceptional merit. These cases are of the rarest, however, the wage as an average falling below that of Boston.

But three State reports cover the same dates as these already quoted (1885 and 1886),—Connecticut, New Jersey, and California, the former being for 1885. In this, women's wages are given incidentally in general tables, and must be disentangled to find any average. In artificial flowers the highest wage is given as $7, and the lowest $3, the average being $5. In blankets and woollen goods the highest is $12.50 and the lowest $6, an average of $9 per week. In factory work of all orders, wages range from $6 to $9.75 per week, the average paid to women and girls being $7.50 per week. In clothing, including underwear, wages are from $3 to $15 per week, and the average annual income of women in these trades is given as $300 per year. In cloakmaking the lowest wage is $3, the highest $9, and the average $7.50. The average wage for San Francisco is given as $6.95, and that for the whole State is about $6. The Connecticut report for 1885 gives simply the yearly wage in various trades. Reason for this is found in the fact that it was the first, and could thus deal with the subject only tentatively. Clothing is given as producing for women a yearly average of $229, and shirts $237. Factory work gave $207, paper boxes $227, and woollen goods $245.

In the report for 1886, the lowest average wage is reported as found in the making of wearing apparel; but the average for the State was found to be a trifle over $6.50 per week.

The report from New Jersey makes the lowest wages $3 per week, and the highest $10, the average being $5. This report covers ground more fully and in more varied directions than any one of the same period, though there is only incidental reference to the work of women as a whole, the returns being given in the general tables of wages. Wages and the cost of living are compared, and the chapter under this head is one of the most valuable in the summary of reports as a whole. The report for 1886 gives the same general average of wages for the State, but adds an exhaustive treatment of "Earnings, Cost of Living, and Prices."

Maine sent out its first annual report in 1887, and gives the wages of women workers as $3.58 for the lowest, and $15.20 for the highest, the annual earnings ranging from $104 to $520. The report from the same State for 1889 takes up the subject of working-women in detail, giving their home or boarding conditions, sanitary conditions, their own remarks on trades, wages, etc., and the aspect of their labor as a whole. The average wage remains the same.

Rhode Island, in its Third Annual Report for 1889, under the direction of Commissioner Almon K. Goodwin, gives the average wage for the State as $5.87, and devotes the bulk of its space to working-women, with full returns from the entire State.

For the same year California, by its labor commissioner, Mr. John J. Tobin, gives an equally exhaustive statement of the conditions of women wage-earners in that State. The lowest weekly wage given is $5, and the highest $11. Plain cooks receive from $25 to $40 a month with board and lodging, and domestic servants from $15 to $25 with board. In cloak-making the lowest wage is $3, and the highest $7.50; and in shirt-making the lowest is $2.50, and the highest $6. General clothing and underwear range from $4.50 to $6, and other trades average a trifle higher wage than in New England. The chapter on domestic service is suggestive and important, and the whole treatment makes the report a necessity to all who would understand the situation in detail. This, however, is so true of all that have touched upon the subject that it appears invidious to single out any one alone. They must be taken together. With each year the scientific value of each increases, and there appears to be distinct emulation among the commissioners as to which shall embody the most in the returns made and the general treatment of the whole.

The first report from Colorado, issued in 1888, Mr. James Rice commissioner, devotes a chapter to women wage-earners, with an additional one on domestic service and its drawbacks. The average wage for the State is given as $6; and the commissioner states that notwithstanding the general impression that higher wages are paid in Colorado than at any other point save California, actual returns show that the average sums in several occupations are less than that paid to persons similarly employed in cities along the Atlantic seaboard.

Kansas, in its fifth annual report issued in 1889, gives a section to working-women. The commissioner, Mr. Frank Betton, considers the returns imperfect, great difficulty having been experienced in securing them. The average weekly wage is given as $5.17. Expenses are carefully analyzed, and there is a report of the remarks of employers, as well as from a number of those employed.

In the report from Iowa for 1887, Commissioner Hutchins laments that so few women have been willing to fill out blanks of returns. The wage returns given range from $3.75 to $9. The report for 1889 makes mention of continued difficulties in securing returns, and gives the annual earnings of women as from $100 to $440. The tables include cost of living and many other essential particulars.

Wisconsin, in the report for 1884, has a chapter on working-girls. It gives the average weekly income in personal services as $5.25; in trade, $4.18; in manufactures, $5.22, and the general average for the year as $5.17.

Minnesota, whose first report, under the supervision of Commissioner John Lamb, appeared in 1888 for the years 1887 and 1888, found little or no room for statistics, but included a chapter on working-women, with a few admirable tables of age, nativity, home and working conditions, etc. Minute inquiry was made as to cost of living, clothing, etc.; and the results form a chapter of painful interest, that on domestic service being equally suggestive. Clothing, as usual, represents the lowest average wage, $3.66 per week, the highest being $8.50, and the general average a trifle over $6.

Michigan, in 1890, under its labor commissioner, Mr. Henry A. Robinson, added to the list one of the most thorough studies yet made of general conditions. The agents of the bureau, trained for the work, made personal visits to working-women and girls to the number of 13,436, this representing one hundred and thirty-seven distinct industries and three hundred and seventy-eight occupations. The blanks prepared for filling out contained one hundred and twenty-nine questions, classified as follows: Social, 28; industrial, 12; hours of labor, 14; economic, 54; sanitary, 21, with seven others as to dress, societies, church attendance, with remarks and suggestions from the workers themselves. As usual, in such cases, employers here and there objected to any investigation, fearing labor organizations were at the bottom of it; but the majority allowed free examination. The report is very full, and gives a clear and full view of the individual lives of this body of women workers. The average wage proved to be $4.81 per week, the average income for the year being $216.45. The average income of teachers and those in public positions was $457.27.

This is the showing, State by State, so far as bureaus have reported. Many States have made no move in this direction; but interest is now thoroughly aroused, and the subject is likely to find treatment in all, this depending somewhat, however, on the character of the State industries and the numbers at work in each. Manufacturing necessarily brings with it conditions that in the end compel inquiry; and for most of the Southern States such industries are still new, while the West has not yet found the same occasion as the East for full knowledge of the problems involved in woman's work and wages.

We come now to the most elaborate and far-reaching inquiry yet made,—the work of the United States Bureau of Labor under Commissioner Wright, entitled "Working-Women in Large Cities." Twenty-two of these are reported upon after one of the most rigorous examinations ever undertaken; and the average wage of each tallies with the rates given in the States to which they belong. Taken alphabetically, the list is as follows:—

AVERAGE WEEKLY EARNINGS, BY CITIES.

Atlanta $4.95 New Orleans $4.31 Baltimore 4.18 New York 5.85 Boston 5.64 Philadelphia 5.34 Brooklyn 5.76 Providence 5.51 Buffalo 4.27 Richmond 3.83 Charleston, S.C. 4.22 St. Louis 5.19 Chicago 5.74 St. Paul 6.62 Cincinnati 4.50 San Francisco 6.91 Cleveland 4.63 San Jose 6.11 Indianapolis 4.57 Savannah 4.90 Louisville 4.51 Newark 5.20 All Cities 5.24

In addition to these figures, it seems well to give the average yearly earnings of women in some of the most profitable industries, those being chosen which are seldom affected by "seasons":—

Artificial flowers, $277.53; awnings and tents, $276.46; bookbinding, $271.31; boots and shoes, $286.60; candy, $213.59; carpets, $298.53; cigar boxes, $267.36; cigar factory, $294.66; cigarette factory, $266.12; cloak factory, $291.76; clothing factory, $248.36; cotton-mills, $228.32; dressmaking, $278.37; dry-goods stores, $368.84; jewelry factory, $263.80; men's furnishing-goods factory, $232.24; millinery, $345.95; paper-box factory, $240.47; plug-tobacco factory, $235.67; printing-office, $300; skirt factory, $265.40; smoking-tobacco factory, $238.70.

These, so far as they have been collected and tabulated by the various labor bureaus, are the returns for the United States as a whole. The reports for the following years of 1891 and 1892 were expected to be far more general, but this has not proved to be the case.

AVERAGE WAGE PER STATE.

Maine $5.50 Massachusetts 6.68 Connecticut 6.50 Rhode Island 5.87 New York 5.85 New Jersey 5.00 California 6.00 Colorado 6.00 Kansas 5.17 Wisconsin 5.17 Minnesota 6.00 All cities 5.24

FOOTNOTES:

[23] Third Annual Report of New York Bureau of Labor, p. 162. These are Mr. Peck's figures; but the United States report gives the average for skilled labor as $5.85 per week, and adds that the unskilled earns far less.

[24] Ibid. p. 165.

[25] New York Bureau of Statistics of Labor, Third Annual Report, p. 27.



VII.

GENERAL CONDITIONS FOR ENGLISH WORKERS.

So far as opportunity is concerned, it is the United States only that offers a practically unlimited field to women workers, to whom some four hundred trades and occupations are now open. Comparison with other countries is, however, essential, if we would judge fairly of conditions as a whole; and thus we turn first to that other English-speaking race, and the English worker at home. At once we are faced with the impossibility of gathering much more than surface indications, since in no other country is there any counterpart to our admirable system of investigation and tabulation, each year more and more systematic and thorough. In spite of the fact that factory laws had their birth in England, and that the whole system of child labor—the early horrors of which find record in thousands of pages of special reports from inspectors appointed by government—has been through their means modified and improved, there are, even now, no sources of information as to numbers at work or the characteristics of special industries. The census must be the chief dependence; and here we find the enormous proportions to which the employment of women has attained.

In 1861 these returns gave for England and Wales 1,024,277 women at work. Twenty years later the number had doubled, half a million being found in London alone. This does not include all, since, as Mr. Charles Booth notes in his recent "Labor and Life of the People," many employed women do not return their employments.

Mr. Booth's work is a purely private enterprise, assisted by devoted co-workers, and by trained experts employed at his own expense. For the final estimate must be added general census returns, and the recent reports on the sweating-system in London and other English cities.

Beginning with factory operatives and their interests, nothing is easier than to follow the course of legislation on their behalf. The "Life of Lord Shaftesbury" is, in itself, the history of the movement for the protection of women and children,—a movement begun early in the present century, and made imperative by the hideous disclosures of oppression and outrage, not only among factory operatives, but the women and children in mining and other industries. Active as were his efforts and those of his colleagues, it is only within a generation that the fruit of their labor is plainly seen. As late as 1844, at the time Engel's notable book on "The Condition of the Working-Class in England" appeared, the labor of children of four and five years was still permitted; and women and children alike worked in mines, in brickyards, and other exposed and dangerous employments for the merest pittance. The pages of Engel's book swarm with incidents of individual and class misery; and while he admits fully, in the appendix prepared in 1886, that many of the evils enumerated have disappeared, he adds that for the mass of workers "the state of misery and insecurity in which they live now is as low as ever, perhaps lower."

Year by year, in spite of constant agitation and the unceasing effort of Lord Shaftesbury to alter the worst abuses, these evils remained, and faced the examiner into social problems, slight ameliorations here and there serving chiefly to throw into darker relief the misery of the situation. Not only the philanthropist but officials joined hands; and in the proceedings of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, each year added to the number and importance of the protests against an iniquitous system.

Chief among these protests ranked that against the overwork of pregnant mothers, through which, as one of the most able opponents of existing evils, W. Stanley Jevons, wrote, "infinite, irreparable wrong is done to helpless children," adding that the appalling infant mortality of the manufacturing districts attracted far less attention and interest in the public mind than the death of a single murderer. At nearly the same time Mr. F.W. Lowndes gave the fruit of long research in a paper read before the British Association for the Advancement of Science, entitled "The Destruction of Infancy;"[26] and this was supplemented by testimony from experts, the Statistical Society adding weighty testimony to the same effect.[27]

From these and other official testimony it was found that in nineteen manufacturing towns,[28] out of 1,023,896 children [Forty-first Report of the Registrar-General, p. 36] born, 82,259 died in infancy. The rate of mortality varied from 59.4 in Portsmouth through an ascending scale, being in London 78.6 and in Liverpool the almost incredible proportion of 103.6 per thousand. In a rural country infant mortality does not exceed from thirty-five to forty per thousand. The Report of the Select Committee on the Protection of Infant Life was filled with details so horrible that only the sworn testimony of experts made them credited at all.[29]

Dr. Hunter's report on rural mortality shows that when mothers are employed in what are known as "field gangs" for out-of-door work, leaving their children in the charge of old women too weak for such labor as their own, that infants died like sheep. Godfrey's Cordial was the chief engine of destruction; the corps of inspectors who reported to the Government finding infants in all stages of prostration, from the overdoses of the popular specific warranted to render any attention from nurse or mother quite unnecessary.

As to the direct effects of factory or out-door labor on pregnant mothers, out of 10,000 births among factory mothers, there died from 1863-75 of children under one year of age, in Portsmouth 1,459, Liverpool 2,189, London 1,591, and other towns with textile industries 1,940. Statistics taken in Germany and at other points all went to show that in the matter of out-door labor at the harvest season, when all women-workers are in the fields, the deaths of nursing infants were three times as great as in the other nine months.

For details and deduction from these facts the reader is referred to the reports themselves. "I go so far," wrote Mr. Jevons, "as to advocate the ultimate complete exclusion of mothers of children under the age of three years from factories and workshops;" and his conviction voiced that of every examiner into the situation as it stood at that time.

The Factory and Workshop Act came as partial solution to the many problems; and though regarded by the working-class as a mass of arbitrary restrictions whose usefulness they denied and in whose benefits they had no faith, it has actually proved the Great Charter of the working-classes. There are points still to be altered,—modifications made necessary by the constant change in methods of production, as well as in the enlarging sense of the ethical principles involved. But our own legislation is still far behind it at many points, and its work is done efficiently and thoroughly. Laws had been made, one by one, fifteen standing on the Statute Books in 1878, when all were abrogated, their essential features being codified in the Act as it stands to-day,—a genuine industrial code in one hundred and seven sections.

Up to this date violation of its provisions had been incessant; but determined enforcement brought about a uniform working day, protection of dangerous machinery, proper ventilation, improved sanitary conditions, an interdict on Sunday labor, and many other reforms in administration. Fourteen years have seen next to no change in the Act, and the condition of women and child workers in factories and workshops has come to be regarded as the best that modern systems of production admit. These workers, whose numbers now mount to hundreds of thousands, are a class apart, and for them legislation has accomplished all that legislation seems able to do in alleviating social miseries. Content with the results achieved, need of further effort in other directions failed of recognition, and apathy became the general condition.

It was during this season of repose that the public mind received first one shock and then another. "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London" appalled all who read; and leaf by leaf the new book of revelations disclosed always deeper depths of misery and want among all workers with the needle,—from the days of the fig-leaf the symbol of grinding toil and often hopeless misery.

Not alone from professional agitators, so called, but from philanthropists of every order, came the cry for help. The Factory and Workshop Act had not touched home labor. The sweating-system, born of modern conditions, had risen unsuspected, and ran riot, not only in East London, but even in back alleys of the sacred west, and in the swarming southwest region beyond London Bridge. The London "Lancet," the most authoritative medical journal of the world, conservative as it has always been, has at last found that it must join hands with socialist and anarchist, "scientific" or otherwise, with philanthropists of every order, against the new evil and its horrors. Rich and poor alike were involved. The virus of the deadly conditions under which the garments took shape was implanted in every stitch that held them together, and transferred itself to the wearer. Not only from London, but from every city of England, came the same cry; and the public faced suddenly an abyss of misery whose existence had been unknown and unsuspected, and the causes of which seemed inexplicable.

For many months of the year just ended (1892) parliamentary investigation has gone on. Report after report has been made to its committees; and as testimony from accredited sources poured in, incidentally a flood of light has been let in upon many forms of work outside the clothing-manufacturer. To-day, in four huge volumes of some thousand pages each, one may read the testimony, heart-sickening in every detail,—a noted French political economist, the Comte d'Haussonville, describing it, in a recent article in "La Revue des deux Mondes" as "The Martyrology of English Industries."

In such conditions inspection is inoperative. An army of inspectors would not suffice where every house represents from one to a dozen workshops under its roof, in each of which sanitary conditions are defied, and the working day made more often fourteen and sixteen hours than twelve. Even for this day a starvation wage is the rule; the sewing-machine operative, for example, while earning a wage of fifteen or eighteen pence, furnishing her own thread and being forced to pay rental on the machine.

A portion of a wage table is given here as illustrative of rates, and used as a reference table before the preparation of Mr. Booth's book, which gives much the same figures:—

Making paper bags, 4-1/2d. to 5-1/2d. per thousand; possible earnings, 5s. to 6s. per week.

Button-holes, 3d. a dozen; possible earnings, 8s. a week.

Shirts, 2d. each, worker finding her own cotton; can get six done between 8 A.M. and 11 P.M.

Sack sewing, 6d. for twenty-five; 8d. to 1s. 6d. per hundred. Possible earnings, 8s. per week.

Pill-box making, 9s. for thirty-six gross; possible earnings, 8s. per week.

Shirt button-hole making, 1d. a dozen; can do three or four dozen a day.

Whip-making, 1s. a dozen; can do a dozen a day.

Trousers finishing, 3d. to 5d. each, finding one's own cotton; can do four a day.

Shirt-finishing, 3d. to 4d. a dozen; possible earnings, 6s. a week.

Outside of the cities, where the needle is almost the sole refuge of the unskilled worker, every industry is invaded. A recent report as to English nail and chain workers shows hours and general conditions to be almost intolerable, while the wage averages eightpence a day. In the mines, despite steady action concerning them, women are working by hundreds for the same rate. In short, from every quarter comes in repeated testimony that the majority of working Englishwomen are struggling for a livelihood; that a pound a week is a fortune, and that the majority live on a wage below subsistence point.

The enormous influx of foreign population is partly responsible for these conditions, but far less than is popularly supposed; since the Jews, most often accused, are in many cases juster employers than the Christians, and suffer from the same causes. For all alike, legislation is powerless to reach certain ingrained evils, and the recent sweating-commission ended its report with the words:—

"We express the firm hope that the faithful exposure of the evils that we have been called upon to unveil, will have the effect of leading capitalists to lend greater attention to the conditions under which work is done, which furnishes the merchandise they demand. When legislation has attained the limit beyond which it can no longer be useful, the amelioration of the condition of workers can result only from the increasing moral sense of those who employ them."

This conclusion, it may be added, is in full accord with that given in the Encyclical of Pope Leo XIII., as well as with that of our most serious workers at home; our own government examination into the sweating-system, now embodied in a Congressional Report accessible to all, being simply confirmation of every point made in that for England. As a summary of many working conditions in London, I add part of a report made by an indefatigable student of social conditions, Margaret Harkness, associated now with Mr. Charles Booth, and as able an observer as her cousin and co-worker, Miss Beatrice Potter, whose report on the sweating-system makes part of Mr. Booth's first volume:[30]—

"I have, for the last six months, been attempting to find out something about the hours and wages of girls who work at various trades in the city. Had I known how difficult the task would be, I should probably never have attempted it. Last time I heard of Mr. Besant he was sitting in his office, overwhelmed with figures and facts. He said then that he did not expect to publish anything about the work of girls and women in the United Kingdom under a year or eighteen months. I do not wonder at it. Apart from the method of his inquiry, I know how exceedingly difficult it is to arrive at the truth; the tact and patience it needs to make such investigations. Employees and employers take very different views of the same circumstances; one must listen to both, and then split the difference.

"There are at the present time absolutely no figures to go upon if one wishes to learn something about the hours and wages of girls who follow certain occupations in the city. The factory inspectors (admirable men, but very much overworked) come, with the most naive delight, to visit any person who has information to give about the people over whose interests they are supposed to watch with fatherly interest. Clergymen shake their heads, or refer one to homes and charities. One has to find out the truth for one's self. Both employers and employees must be visited. Even then one must wait days and weeks to inspire them with confidence, for thus alone can one obtain a thorough knowledge of things as they really are, and arrive at facts unbiassed by prejudice.

"So far I have found that there are, at least, two hundred trades at which girls work in the city. Some employ hundreds of hands, and some only fifty or sixty. Printers give the greatest amount of work, perhaps; but there are at least two hundred other occupations in which girls earn a living; namely, brush-makers, button-makers, cigarette-makers, electric-light fitters, fur-workers, India-rubber-stamp machinist, magic-lantern-slide makers, perfumers, portmanteau-makers, spectacle-makers, surgical-instrument makers, tie-makers, etc. These girls can be roughly divided into two classes,—those who earn from 8s. to 14s., and those who earn from 4s. to 8s. per week. Taking slack time into consideration, it is, I think, safe to say that 10s. is the average weekly wage of the first class, and 4s. 6d. that of the second class. Their weekly wage often falls below this, and sometimes rises above it. The hours are almost invariably from 8 A.M. to 7 P.M., with one hour for dinner and a half-holiday on Saturday. I know few cases in which such girls work less; a good many in which over-time reaches to ten or eleven at night; a few in which over-time means all night. There is little to choose between the two classes. The second are allowed by their employers to wear old clothes and boots; the first must make 'a genteel appearance.'

"I often hear rich women say, 'Oh, working-girls cannot be very poor; they wear such smart feathers.' If these women knew how the girls have to stint in underclothing and food in order to make what their employers call 'a genteel appearance,' I think they would pass quite another verdict. I will give two typical cases: A girl living just over Blackfriars Bridge, in one small room, for which she pays 5s., earns 10s. a week in a printer's business. She works from 8 A.M. to 6 P.M., then returns home to do all the washing, cleaning, cooking, etc., that is necessary in a one-room establishment. She has an invalid mother dependent on her efforts, and is out-patient herself at one of the London hospitals. She was sixteen last Christmas. Another girl, who lives in two cellars near Lisson Grove, with father, mother, and six brothers and sisters, earns 3s. 6d. a week in a well-known factory. She is seventeen years old, but does not look more than ten or eleven. Every morning she walks a mile to her work, arriving at eight o'clock; every evening she walks a mile back, reaching home about seven o'clock. If she arrives at the factory five minutes late, she is fined 7d. If she stays away a whole day, she is 'drilled,'—that is, kept without work a whole week. Her father has been out of employment for six months; so her weekly 3s. 6d. goes into the family purse. Her food consists of three slices of bread and butter, which she takes to the factory for dinner; one slice of bread and butter and some weak tea for supper and breakfast. These cases are not picked. They are to be found scattered all over London. Many and many a family is at the present time being kept by the labor of one or two such girls, who can at the most earn a few shillings. When one thinks what the life of a young girl is in happy families, all the joyousness of which she is capable, until sorrow sets its seal on her, one's heart aches for the sad lives of these girls in the city.

'And still her voice comes ringing Across the soft still air, And still I hear her singing, "Oh, life, thou art most fair!"'

"A young girl is capable of feeling in one brief hour more intense delight than a boy of her age experiences in a fortnight. Yet all this joyousness is ruthlessly stamped upon by competition, and thousands of girls in London have no enjoyment except to gaze at monstrosities in penny gaffs, or to dance on dirty pavements; and generally these poor things are too tired even to do that. It is strange that the public take so little interest in these girls, considering they must become mothers of future citizens. 'The youth of a nation are the trustees of posterity.' What sort of daughters are these girls with their pinched faces and stunted bodies likely to give England? What will posterity say of the girl labor that now goes on in the city? I have seen strong men weeping because they have no bread to give their children; I know at the London docks chains have been replaced by wooden barriers, because starving men behind pressed so hard on starving men in front, that the latter were nearly cut in two by the iron railings; I have watched a contractor mauled when he had no work to give, and have myself been nearly killed by a brick-bat that was hurled at a contractor's head by a man whose family was starving: but I deliberately say of all the victims of our present competitive system I pity these girls the most. They are so fragile. Honest work is made for them almost impossible; and if they slip, no one gives them a second chance, they are kicked and spat upon by the public. I know that the girl-labor question is but a portion of the larger labor question, that nothing can be done for them at present; but I wish that they were not the victims of the laissez-faire policy in two ways instead of one; I wish that their richer sisters were not so terribly apathetic about them."

For Scotland, industries, wages, and general conditions are much the same as those of England. Factory life has been at many points improved, and the superior thrift and education of the working-class shows in the large amount of their savings. But Glasgow has faced conditions almost as terrible as those given in "The Bitter Cry of Outcast London," with a result not yet attained by the latter city, having destroyed hundreds of foul tenements to make room for improved dwellings.

For Ireland, though Irish linen, poplins, and woollens are the synonym of excellence, the proportion of women workers in these industries is comparatively small. In a few counties in the south Irish lace is made, but the women are chiefly agricultural laborers. Thanks to the efforts of Parnell, in 1885, there was formed "The Association for the Promotion of Irish Industries," then chiefly destroyed by the "Act of Union" which permitted England to levy protective tariffs on all Irish manufactures. Statistics on these points are hidden in English Blue-books, and we have no very reliable data as to the number of women and children employed. The efforts of the Countess of Aberdeen, during the term of her husband as Viceroy of Ireland, and of the Countess of Dunraven on the Dunraven estates in the county of Limerick, have done much to re-establish the lace industry,—with such success that the work compares favorably with that of some of the French convents.

In Wales, as in the North of England, women and children are employed in the mines, and there is constant evasion of the laws regulating hours, with a wage as inadequate as the work is heavy. Heavy woollens and corduroy employ a small proportion in their manufacture, wage and hours being the same as those of England.

FOOTNOTES:

[26] "The Destruction of Infants," by Mr. F.W. Lowndes, M.R.C.S., British Association for the Advancement of Science, Report for 1870, p. 586.

[27] Journal of the Statistical Society, Sept., 1870, vol. xxxiii. pp. 323-326.

[28] Parliamentary Paper, No. 372, July 20, 1871: Collected Series, vol. vii. p. 606.

[29] Sixth Report of the Medical Officer of the Privy Council, 1863, pp. 454-462. Parliamentary Paper, 1864, No. 3,416, vol. xxviii.

[30] Labor and Life of the People, vol. i.: East London. Edited by Charles Booth, p. 564.



VIII.

GENERAL CONDITIONS FOR CONTINENTAL WORKERS.

For France the census of 1847 showed a list of 959 women workers in Paris earning sixty centimes a day; 100,000 earning from sixty centimes to three francs, and 626 earning over three francs. That for 1869 showed 17,203, earning from fifty centimes to one franc twenty-five centimes daily; 11,000 of these workers being furnished lodging, food, and washing. Of the entire number 88,340 earned from one franc fifty centimes to four francs a day; 767 earned from four francs fifty centimes to ten francs daily, most of the latter class being heads of work rooms or shops. The rise in wages affected the better orders of worker, but left the sewing-woman's wage nearly unchanged. Levasseur[31] tells us that toward the end of the reign of Louis Philippe the wage of a woman varied ordinarily from twelve to twenty-five sous, exceptionally from twenty to forty; that of children being from six to fifteen sous; of men from thirty sous for ordinary laborers, to forty or forty-five for skilled work.

The census for 1851 gave for Paris 112,891 workwomen, 60,000 of whom were sewers. Convent sewing, that of the prisons and reformatories, and the competition of women who had homes and worked simply for pin-money, kept the wage at a minimum; and these conditions still operate toward that end, precisely as they do for all countries where the needle is a means of support, the evil being felt most severely in our cities. The facts in the life of a French seamstress are much the same as those of the Englishwoman. To earn two francs a day she must make eight chemises, working from fourteen to sixteen hours daily to accomplish this. The income of the average sewer does not exceed, at the best, five hundred francs, and most usually falls below. Rents are so high that a garret requires not less than one hundred francs a year. In his researches into conditions, Jules Simon[32] found that this sum compelled deprivations of every order. Expenses were as follows: Rent, 100 francs; clothing, bedding, etc., 115 francs; washing, 36 francs; heat and light, 36 francs. These sums amounted to 286.50 francs, the amount remaining for food being 215.50 or a little less than twelve sous a day,—the amount expended by two of our own seamstresses in New York in 1887, the items being given by the earner.[33]